Thoughts from the interface of science, religion, law and culture

After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. He has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and the Thom Hartmann Show, and is almost certain that he is the only person ever to make fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

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A Million Bigot March

On March 27, the Supreme Court will begin hearing oral argument on the two marriage equality cases. The Family Research Council is asking its followers to show up for a million bigot march on the National Mall, presumably to influence the court in some way.

If President Obama is considering weighing in on the Supreme Court marriage cases–then you should too! Next month, during two of the most important trials of the century, the National Organization for Marriage is urging America to rally for marriage at a once-in-a-lifetime March on the National Mall. Pro-family groups like FRC, churches, state activists, and cultural leaders are all converging on Washington to show the world that we care about protecting marriage and want to stand up and fight for it. The event kicks off Tuesday morning, March 26, as nine Supreme Court justices hear oral arguments on two cases that could change the course of history–and our nation–forever.

“To me,” ABC News’s Matthew Dowd has said, “the consensus has already emerged on this issue. It’s just a question of… is the Supreme Court going to catch up, or get ahead of it, or put a block in the path of it?” This is a chance to prove that the only consensus on marriage is the belief that one man and one woman define it. You can help us bring that message to the steps of the Supreme Court by standing with men and women from all 50 states who believe in marriage, religious liberty, and the right of every child to have a mom and a dad.

Uh, no. It doesn’t matter how many people you have show up to march, it will not prove that you’re in the majority on this issue. The polls of all Americans, not just the ones who will show up in Washington to protest something that does not affect them in any way at all, show that a majority now supports marriage equality.

Comments

I’m kind of torn about what the best response would be. On one hand, if there’s a counter-protest that outnumber the bigots, it might shake the resolve of some of the bigots. On the other hand, emphasizing relative numbers would rhetorically legitimize the fallacious notion that number of protestors matters, plus the risk of sending the wrong message if there aren’t enough people mobilized for the counter-protest. Opposite that would be the possible benefit of being plainly dismissive of them, trying to make them feel ridiculous and morally deviant for harboring this sex-negative perversion of theirs. Of course, they’d have to be able to hear us talking about them in that fashion for it to be effective.

Actually, it’s more likely that they’ll raise -unwanted- children. That is to say, those children who have been put up for adoption by parents who didn’t want them will be adopted by homosexual couples who DO want them. So that’s one more problem that marriage equality will solve.

Dealing with bigots against homosexuals is exhausting. They do not care about logic. Equality only applies to them and others exactly like them. And they feel they are the ones being oppressed. And some of the sites where I debate them have told me I am not allowed to call them bigoted assholes or despicable hypocrites.

I’m sure that no matter how many show up, the park service will report the numbers as accurately as they can – just like they do for all major events on the National Mall – and the right wing punditsphere will explode in outrage about how the liberal mainstream media is misrepresenting how many showed up. Queue fake footage of some other event.

Isn’t the point of settling something in the courts that it isn’t subject to the whims of the majority? Trying to show up and say “our side has the most popular support!!1!one” is pretty much* meaningless by definition for that branch of government.

*unless they get a large enough turnout that they could pass a constitutional amendment on the spot, I guess.

Technically, if they could get 160 million people to show up for the rally, that would show that they’re in the majority. So if they could get everyone in the country east of Branson, MO, to show up, that’d work.

I hope Ed’s blog post title doesn’t end up staying here. It’d be great if, “Million Bigot March” was used by every non-bigot non-journalist every single time they were speaking to a journalist about this event. It needs to be a mantra like no recent other.

Sorry for being off topic, but I couldn’t find Ed’s email. Ashley Miller has a post from a few months back called “Racism, homophobia, and how I lost my dad last week”. It has attracted a number of racists and it would be nice if she had more support.

Funny, when I was last bitch slapping the teatards over on Townhall on this issue, some of them claimed that the one thing for sure is that every child has a mom and a dad. Yet here they are fighting so every child can? Just another case of crankery – like the global warming denialists who can’t decide if there’s no warming, or if there’s unstoppable warming, cranks can never keep their objections logically consistent, nor do they care.

I would say rather that it is the right of every child to be wanted, and to be brought up in a stable household by a parent or parents who will love and nurture them. It is clearly possible to bond to a child who is not biologically yours: in the case of adoptive parents, neither parent is biologically related to the child, and yet I don’t hear any cries from the Religious Right about the perversity of adoption.

Just like adoptive parents, same-sex couples have to jump through extra hoops to have children (i.e. any children they have are wanted children), but unlike adoptive parents, one parent is biologically related (unless of course they too are adopting). So from the Religious Right’s point of view, same-sex marriage should be more acceptable than adoption.

PS. Anyone else noticed how the Religious Right often deride same-sex couples’ motivations for becoming parents by claiming that they want children for “selfish” reasons? Even assuming this to be true, how exactly is this any different from heterosexual couples’ motivations? There are hetero couples who view children partly as accessories, or see all their friends starting families and not wanting to be left out, or avoid falling out their parents who want grandchildren. Are these reasons all fine if hetero couples use them?

Am I just stupid, or ill-informed? I don’t get it. I JUST DON’T GET IT. Gay marriage damages no one else’s marriage. Gay marriage damages no social institution. Gay marriage does not threaten religious institutions, because religious institutions need not recognize it (except when they act as employers). Gay marriage does not disturb the economy — in fact it may very well strengthen it. Bigots are still free to be bigots — if the first amendment means anything, it protects the right to engage in stupid or offensive speech. There’s not a shred of evidence that any of these dire things are likely to happen.

So WHY are these idiots expending so much energy and time opposing it? What do they have to gain from doing so? Don’t they have something better to do with all this energy?

So WHY are these idiots expending so much energy and time opposing it? What do they have to gain from doing so? Don’t they have something better to do with all this energy?

You know, I spent the first 18 years of my life being dragged to similarly homophobic churches, and I still haven’t heard a coherent answer to any of these questions. All I can say for sure is that if you ask them whether they believe roving bands of gay lawyers are kidnapping straight couples and forcing them to sign divorce papers, the bigots get cranky. So apparently that isn’t their concern, but I still don’t know what is.

So WHY are these idiots expending so much energy and time opposing it? What do they have to gain from doing so? Don’t they have something better to do with all this energy?

Because gay marriage challenges the idea that some societal norms are to be enforced by the power of the state. Because it leads society to become less authoritarian, because it gives more autonomy to individuals, because it weakens even more the possibility to use one’s ennemy orientation against him or her if one wants to ruin his/her good name. Because it takes away one bullies’ way to control people by pretending to be the gatekeeper of virtue and morality

There are plenty of reasons to oppose gay marriage, if you’re an abject person.

So WHY are these idiots expending so much energy and time opposing it? What do they have to gain from doing so? Don’t they have something better to do with all this energy?

Am I missing something? What?

From what I can see, some bigots are smart enough to work out that, if their viewpoints aren’t enforced by law and/or the norms of society, their bigotry and their discrimination means very little, as they can basically be sidelined and ignored by non-bigots. As such, they seek the situation where everyone not only has the right, but is forced to apply bigotry. So, if gay people have the legal right to get married, just like straight people, this is a step towards the situation where homophobic viewpoints can be sidelined and ignored, so they oppose this, even though this would have zero effect on their marriage, the marriages of straight people generally, the rights of religious groups, etc, etc, etc. The bigots who aren’t smart enough to work this out are simply persuaded by the arguments of those who are, even if those arguments don’t actually make sense or are simply wrong.